Automating Your Manufacturing Shop Floor Administration with NetSuite

In recent years the manufacturing industry has experienced significant challenges due to supply chain disruption, staff shortages and a downturn in the economy. As such, manufacturing companies are looking for ways to streamline their shop floor operations and increase efficiency across the entire production lifecycle, through from design to delivery. With the help of NetSuite Manufacturing Edition, businesses can automate their shop floor administration and gain greater visibility into their manufacturing processes.

Benefits of Automating Your Manufacturing Shop Floor Administration

Automating shop floor administration with NetSuite offers a variety of benefits. With the increase in uptake of the Internet of Things (IoT) and increased affordability of automation technologies, such as robotics and automated production lines, manufacturers are capturing more digital data than ever. By utilising a reliable MRP system that can process and analyse this information, manufacturers can improve their reporting and gain valuable insights, leading to a revolution in how they produce, market, and distribute their goods.

Together, this technology can offer:

Improved accuracy and speed of data collection

NetSuite’s automated data collection reduces human errors and speeds up the time it takes to collect information. This increases accuracy during production, reducing costs due to waste and rework.

Increased visibility across the entire supply chain

By automating shop floor administration with NetSuite, manufacturing businesses can gain end-to-end visibility into their production processes, allowing them to make better decisions in real time. This also enables companies to monitor their inventory levels and anticipate customer demand more accurately.

Improved collaboration between departments

NetSuite’s shop floor administration automation system allows for seamless communication between all departments involved in the production process. This improves coordination, provides accurate data for decision-making and ultimately leads to a smoother production process.

Increased visibility into the manufacturing process

By collecting data from each stage of the production process, businesses can gain valuable insights into where and how to improve their operations. This helps them identify potential problems before they occur, as well as uncover opportunities for cost savings or process improvements.

Streamlined order and supply chain management

With the help of an automated shop floor administration system, manufacturing businesses can easily keep track of orders and supply chain management. This enables them to respond faster to customer needs, as well as create more efficient processes for ordering and production planning.

Global supply chain control and visibility

NetSuite’s automated shop floor administration system gives businesses the ability to track production and shipments across countries. This helps them increase their efficiency by enabling global supply chain control and visibility, leading to better cost management and improved customer service.

Key Shop Floor Data Points Manufacturers Should Be Capturing and Using

NetSuite’s automated shop floor administration system allows users to capture all the important data points manufacturers need to run their operations efficiently. In addition to this, through simple customisation users can create fields, forms and tables to capture data unique to their own industry, products and business requirements. Key data points include:

Live inventory levels: Manufacturers should track their inventory levels in real-time to ensure adequate stock is available and orders can be fulfilled quickly.

Work in progress: By tracking work in progress data, manufacturers can gain visibility into the current production status of orders and accurately account for them in the General Ledger

Supplier performance: By tracking and analysing supplier performance, manufacturers can identify which suppliers should be identified as preferred based on things like delivery times, accuracy and product quality.

Manufacturing quality: By monitoring quality control data, manufacturers can identify and address any discrepancies or defects in their production process and rectify them quickly to avoid customer complaints.

Labour management: Automating labour management allows manufacturers to track employee performance, boost efficiency and accuracy in production processes and reduce labour costs.

Accurate overheads and job costing: By tracking the costs associated with each job in real-time, manufacturers can accurately track and map their overhead costs for each job. This allows them to gain better visibility into job costing and helps gain a truer understanding of the cost of each unit produced.

Production process: Capturing data from each stage of the production process helps identify areas for improvement and provides valuable insights into how to increase efficiency.

Quality assurance: Automated quality assurance systems can help manufacturers ensure all products meet required specifications and standards.

Delivery times: Tracking delivery times enables businesses to analyse supply chain performance and make necessary improvements, ensuring orders are delivered in a timely manner.

NetSuite Modules that Support Shop Floor Automation Initiatives